AUSTIN — Security on the Texas border has created yet another insidious problem: an acute shortage of public accountants to keep track of the largess from all the illegal trafficking.

An audit of $562,000 of criminal asset forfeiture fund spending by former Brooks County Sheriff Balde Lozano has been turned over to the office of the Texas Attorney General, according to a story by the Corpus Christi Caller Times.

Lozano has not been charged with any crime.

The investigation comes eight months after a Nueces County district judge sentenced former Brooks County District Attorney Joe Frank Garza to jail and ordered more than $2 million in restitution for skimming at least $1.2 million from the same kind of fundfor himself and three of his former staff members.

The same auditor in the Garza investigation said Lozano, sheriff from 1997 through 2009, spent $394,000 on 18 cars bought without county approval for reasons that appeared to have nothing to do with law enforcement. The sheriff returned $21,550 to Brooks County after five of the cars were sold, according to the audit.